An Analyzation of Skyrim and Oblivion and their failings in Character Progression

[xefaros]

First of all i think oblivion system was the best.Did you want an overpowered character?Swap the major skills with the minor.Did you want an weak one?Overlevel the skills.You can make a unique character for your playstyle and enjoyment.Oblivion focused on character progression while skyrim focused on button smashing.On a side note thats why a difficulty bar exist in the first place!If you still think skyrim was easy crank up to difficulty remove the HUD and enjoy a more immersive experience.And there are mods that allow you to change those parts you dont like
Difficulty bars:
Oblivion 6x max dmg done and taken
skyrim 2x max dmg done and taken


ITS A BLOODY SINGLE PLAYER GAME PLAY IT AS YOU LIKE.You got the tools dont cry over how flawed or easy it is to cheat it or you will end up playing the Diablo 3 character progression system in a few Elder Scrolls down the road(a skill tree with no diversification)

 

[Magicman10893]

Oddly enough, I encountered the exact opposite. In Oblivion my character was over powered as hell. I created spells that would artificially boost skills like repair to the point that I only ever needed one Repair Hammer, or Merchantile to the point that I could buy the shopkeeper's inventory and sell it back to him for a profit. I could craft armor that boosted my carry weight to the point that I could pick up literally everything in a dungeon and still have room left over. I could craft clothes that would make me completely invisible and I would run around Oblivion Gates just sneak attacking everything to death with a weak dagger enchanted with soul trap and farm Grand Souls.

Skyrim on the other hand, left me quitting because the end game was so damn hard. I got to around level 71 and every Draugr was replaced with Death Lords that could see me despite having 100 sneak, sneak-boosting gear and being invisible, and kill me with a single arrow to the foot from a regular Ancient Nord Bow and Arrow. I even got my Smithing and Enchanting to 100 and crafted a Daedric Long Sword, improved it to the maximum amount possible, enchanted it with the best enchantments possible (having the perk that gives me two enchantments on one item), and having 100 in One-Handed (with all perks that increase weapon damage) and it still takes several power hits in order to kill a bandit. My Destruction Skill was at 100 and I took every perk to increase spell damage and it was still taking so many casts to kill a single, basic enemy that I have to drink Mana Potions after every kill. It got so bad that I devoted nearly every level up to increased Magicka and wearing Magicka boosting gear and I still end up running out of Magicka incredibly quickly.

All of this was on the easiest difficulty as a Breton (who are made for the kind of Battlemage gameplay I was trying).

 

[DoPo]

One thing that has always been excellent in The Elder Scrolls series is its basic character progression system.

Annnnnnd you lost me.

I love the Elder Scrolls games, I really do, but their progression systems and basic structure is utterly clownshoes. From a game mechanics perspective they're complete and total garbage. Wonderful games, but mechanical travesties.

Great point. I started reading but the though of that sentence kept bothering me, so I quickly checked if anybody else commented on it. And yes, there it is! The character development was bloody awful. OK, I'm exaggerating a bit but it was bad. Skills of varying usefulness, poorly explained chargen (for newcomers, that is), redundant options, trap options, and fake complexity thrown in. It was bloated and obtuse for no reason. Oblivion was borderline broken, the bad kind of broken. Hell, Skyrim does better by virtue of not having as many elements that can be used wrong.

Actually, Skyrim does fairly well, compared to the other games. Heck, it's doing downright brilliant from a certain viewpoint, because the mechanics don't get in the way of playing the game. That's huge for TES. It's not a step up from Oblivion - hell no, it's like several flights of stairs above it. And if simplification is what it takes to do that, then I'm happy Bethesda chose that option.

Now, I personally prefer an older style system, as in, have attributes and skills. I'm totally fine with Morrowind's "fail chance" type of skills and I'd even welcome the advantages/disadvantages from Daggerfall. Throw in some more skills from Daggerfall, too, while you're at it - Etiquette and Streetwise I thought were brilliant, I'd love to see Climbing make it into a game. Like at all. Anyway while I do prefer that, I also prefer if these elements were used correctly not just used for the sake of using them.

And I don't get what's the beef so many people have with Skyrim's choice of mechanics. Yes, it's simplified, but that's nothing new. Most character progression mods for Morrowind/Oblivion did exactly what Skyrim tried to do - make people just play the game, without worrying for skill choices as much. So if Skyrim takes the direction that nearly every of the best known and most used mods for "fixing" the character progression took...how is this a bad thing? Clearly lots of people wanted it to take that direction, otherwise 1. the mods wouldn't be used as much 2. there wouldn't be that many of them that tackled it from the same direction.

 

[Flare_Dragon123]

And I don't get what's the beef so many people have with Skyrim's choice of mechanics. Yes, it's simplified, but that's nothing new. Most character progression mods for Morrowind/Oblivion did exactly what Skyrim tried to do - make people just play the game, without worrying for skill choices as much. So if Skyrim takes the direction that nearly every of the best known and most used mods for "fixing" the character progression took...how is this a bad thing? Clearly lots of people wanted it to take that direction, otherwise 1. the mods wouldn't be used as much 2. there wouldn't be that many of them that tackled it from the same direction.

Allow me to input a bit there. I find a disturbing trend towards simplification in RPGs over this game generation. While I agree simplification is a good step when you are wanting to craft a more consumer friendly rpg, its not the right thing to do for every game. We've seen previously fun games like World of Warcraft and Diablo be downgraded to the level of mind numbing (not that they weren't before, but cutting out talent trees just felt like a shot to the balls) and its clear to me that the reason these games are coming out as not fun isn't because they cater to casuals, but because the way in which they're simplifying cuts out content and customization.

At this point in gaming, there's really no need to cut customization, especially not in RPGs. That's not to say I haven't seen in pushed into some games, and other series have certainly lost their direction due to forcing in what's essentially a virtual barbie doll simulator (Soul Caliber from 4 onwards.

But again, operating from the defined central core of an RPG gameplay experience, the idea is to use multiple systems of power acquirement to eventually achieve a high level of power. This is the usual way of doing things. Its tried and true, and hasn't failed many of the games we consider greats of the series. But back near the turn of the decade, we were getting games that provided nearly endless customization for our characters. Diablo and Diablo 2, Final Fantasy 7 and 8, (I'm running out of actual examples) but the point being that this old trend is dying to AAA accessible games that don't provide that experience.

Oblivion was that kind of experience. Again, I think Oblivion is probably the best. But you can't deny that although Skyrim simplified things, its missing an aspect of it. Everything is skills. Everything about your power gaining is skills. Not even random gear can be seen more important when all you need is Smithing. Where's the room for custimization in that? If I want the best possible character, no matter what build, I pretty much ought to max smithing and enchanting.

First of all i think oblivion system was the best.Did you want an overpowered character?Swap the major skills with the minor.Did you want an weak one?Overlevel the skills.You can make a unique character for your playstyle and enjoyment.Oblivion focused on character progression while skyrim focused on button smashing.On a side note thats why a difficulty bar exist in the first place!If you still think skyrim was easy crank up to difficulty remove the HUD and enjoy a more immersive experience.And there are mods that allow you to change those parts you dont like
Difficulty bars:
Oblivion 6x max dmg done and taken
skyrim 2x max dmg done and taken


ITS A BLOODY SINGLE PLAYER GAME PLAY IT AS YOU LIKE.You got the tools dont cry over how flawed or easy it is to cheat it or you will end up playing the Diablo 3 character progression system in a few Elder Scrolls down the road(a skill tree with no diversification)

One thing I do want to mention is that, this is true, there is a difficulty slider in the game, but difficulty at a Normal or pre-defined level is developer chosen. This means they decided that this particular level of difficulty was going to be the best for the majority of people.

Also, I have no problem with the difficulty in Oblivion, I have the problem with its repetitiveness. I have a problem that someone else mentioned was their issue with Skyrim, that late-game Oblivion is a button masher and nothing more. And as Diablo 3 taught us a few months ago, there is no strategy in button mashing.

There should exist, given the possibility of weighing all systems against each other, that you can essentially break the game, but the developers not having the foresight to balance for that goes to show a lack of attention to that area.

Yes the Elder Scrolls series is great. We aren't debating that, we aren't discussing that. They are hitting their point.

I have no problem with the games as they are, but if they want to look ahead, to really take the best of Oblivion and the best of Skyrim and the best of the others, they do not need to expand for the casual audience, you have the casual audience.

Now do something a bit hardcore. It costs money, but your pumping out DLC that will sell to maybe 10% of your customers.

In fact, why do we not have some great end-game DLC?


There is the argument of the Modding Community, but again, this is the same as arguing about difficulty sliders. Both games are out on systems where modding is not available. Its great that its there, but even if the game was perfect, people would find something to modify. There will always be someone who wants to go to the Scarlet Monastary in Oblivion, but you can't program that in.

I want to see what the professionals can do, given the task.

 

[DoPo]

Allow me to input a bit there. I find a disturbing trend towards simplification in RPGs over this game generation. While I agree simplification is a good step when you are wanting to craft a more consumer friendly rpg, its not the right thing to do for every game.

Look, I agree with that. Things do get simplified, that is a fact. However calling Skyrim's move "wanting to craft a more consumer friendly rpg" is just not true, since the old system they used was handled very, very badly. On multiple levels. Evidently, Bethesda suck at RPG elements, so it's actually a good move to not mess them up more. I'm all for RPG elements myself, but if they are abused, I'd rather not have them at all, to be honest.

Furthermore, Bethesda are showing signs that they are taking cues from what the community wants. As I said, the community wants a character development system that doesn't suck, and the easiest fix they apply is simplifying it. The majority of levelling fixing mods do that. GCD and MADD leveler for Morrowind, I forget the names of the Oblivion mods but there were several there that did basically the same. The only one that didn't that I can think of, just swapped it to gaining experience from kills. Which isn't really an improvement, IMO, but some people prefer that.

 

[Flare_Dragon123]

Allow me to input a bit there. I find a disturbing trend towards simplification in RPGs over this game generation. While I agree simplification is a good step when you are wanting to craft a more consumer friendly rpg, its not the right thing to do for every game.

Look, I agree with that. Things do get simplified, that is a fact. However calling Skyrim's move "wanting to craft a more consumer friendly rpg" is just not true, since the old system they used was handled very, very badly. On multiple levels. Evidently, Bethesda suck at RPG elements, so it's actually a good move to not mess them up more. I'm all for RPG elements myself, but if they are abused, I'd rather not have them at all, to be honest.

I do not believe that it should be the case that someone simply discards an element due to it not working in some way. Now I'm sure that the Bethesda team put WAAAY more thought into it than we can give them credit for. But its the type of downgrading seen in this game that eventually gets us to the over simplicity or flat out catering that you see in something like Diablo 3 or Mists of Panderia.

Now I'm not saying, don't listen to your community, its important to listen to the community, but frankly I think of the difference between Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2, as far as combat system goes. Rather than keep Dragon Age the semi-niche game of Bioware's line-up (a real D&D style adventure from the old days) they made it into an action RPG a la Diablo, and the result was a backlash. They tried to make Dragon Age: Mass Effect edition and the series seemed to lose its soul just a little bit in the process.

RPGs are not simple games. At best, they should be more like Super Smash Bros., you can pick up and play them, but you can spend hours and hours mastering everything about them for a richer experience. They need that depth, not just explorative and modding wise, but system wise as well.

I mean its the blanket argument for immersion. If you want to immerse you need a deep system.

Furthermore, Bethesda are showing signs that they are taking cues from what the community wants. As I said, the community wants a character development system that doesn't suck, and the easiest fix they apply is simplifying it. The majority of levelling fixing mods do that. GCD and MADD leveler for Morrowind, I forget the names of the Oblivion mods but there were several there that did basically the same. The only one that didn't that I can think of, just swapped it to gaining experience from kills. Which isn't really an improvement, IMO, but some people prefer that.

They simplify only the broken parts of a broken system. Its true that these mods stream line the idea, but they don't violate the systems. To completely change the systems there's a ton of work that has to go into it. That's why I'm saying Bethesda needs to do it. From a modding stand-point there's only so much work you can do and put in, before its just the fact that you are stuck to this base engine. You can do a lot of neat things with paper, but it won't ever stop a bullet.

 

[Odbarc]

You do very much get too powerful in Skyrim. All the fancy doodads just pile up where as only one fancy doodad is all you really need to roflstomp a lot of content. And it's hard to avoid all the roflstomp doodads by trying to stay weak without also wanting to grow more powerful in whatever play-method you're using.

 

[DoPo]

Allow me to input a bit there. I find a disturbing trend towards simplification in RPGs over this game generation. While I agree simplification is a good step when you are wanting to craft a more consumer friendly rpg, its not the right thing to do for every game.

Look, I agree with that. Things do get simplified, that is a fact. However calling Skyrim's move "wanting to craft a more consumer friendly rpg" is just not true, since the old system they used was handled very, very badly. On multiple levels. Evidently, Bethesda suck at RPG elements, so it's actually a good move to not mess them up more. I'm all for RPG elements myself, but if they are abused, I'd rather not have them at all, to be honest.

I do not believe that it should be the case that someone simply discards an element due to it not working in some way. Now I'm sure that the Bethesda team put WAAAY more thought into it than we can give them credit for. But its the type of downgrading seen in this game that eventually gets us to the over simplicity or flat out catering that you see in something like Diablo 3 or Mists of Panderia.

Now I'm not saying, don't listen to your community, its important to listen to the community, but frankly I think of the difference between Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2, as far as combat system goes. Rather than keep Dragon Age the semi-niche game of Bioware's line-up (a real D&D style adventure from the old days) they made it into an action RPG a la Diablo, and the result was a backlash. They tried to make Dragon Age: Mass Effect edition and the series seemed to lose its soul just a little bit in the process.

RPGs are not simple games. At best, they should be more like Super Smash Bros., you can pick up and play them, but you can spend hours and hours mastering everything about them for a richer experience. They need that depth, not just explorative and modding wise, but system wise as well.

I mean its the blanket argument for immersion. If you want to immerse you need a deep system.

The issue with all these games is that they worked beforehand, therefore a simplification was unneeded and mildly insulting to the previous fan base. While a certain mount of refinement is to be expected, downright cutting down is not, and should not, be the way.

But as I said, TES was always broken. For several iterations Bethesda tried refinements and it was along the lines of one step forward, two back in some regards, in others it was one forward and one to the side. Point is, it wasn't the progress they, or the players, were hoping for. In that case, I see their simplification decision as a good one - they cannot fix the system, so they scrap trying to instead of break it further. Why should they waste resources to do something they evidently cannot do for over a decade now? And why should they leave something in that works against the games?

 

[Vhite]

For me Skyrim wins (if you take this as VS thread) because its a less of an RPG and thus its less dependant on character progression.
I am an RPG fan and more complex the RPG, more I enjoy it, but Bethesda cant make a good RPG if their existence depended on it yet they cant even die trying because their games are good in every other aspect. They are both sole tortured sole and devil of RPG makers hell and their only escape is to stop making RPGs. With Skyrim they almost made it.

 

[Flare_Dragon123]

For me Skyrim wins (if you take this as VS thread) because its a less of an RPG and thus its less dependant on character progression.
I am an RPG fan and more complex the RPG, more I enjoy it, but Bethesda cant make a good RPG if their existence depended on it yet they cant even die trying because their games are good in every other aspect. They are both sole tortured sole and devil of RPG makers hell and their only escape is to stop making RPGs. With Skyrim they almost made it.

I find that hard to believe.

Not saying I didn't like the Baldur's Gates and Planescape:Torments myself...

BUT

As for anyone doing anything anywhere near mildly interesting in an RPG perspective here, we have next to no one. Bioware gave up on Mass Effect as an RPG a long time ago. Dragon Age at this rate is going to be the same. MMORPGs are pretty much a joke nowadays, moreso at the expense of anyone who takes any of them seriously anymore, and the last truly great JRPG that came out was probably either the remake of Romancing Saga or Final Fantasy IX.

That being said, I think Fallout 3 was a pretty grand game. It may have violated that series' pretenses a bit, but it was a different company, and they constructed an epic that, before the "community" bitched about being locked out of their save file, was probably the greatest modern day tale of loss and sacrifice.


What I detest more about Skyrim is that it feels like Bethesda just kind of castrated themselves. In a lot of ways the game works much better than Oblivion. It looks better, the dungeons are eh... "uniquer", and the world is fantastically rich with life and things to do, and stuff to see, and no matter how many hours I put into it I still seem to have things I haven't done yet (where did the last year of my life go?)

But at the same time, I see so many points, be it the engrossing power of just about every single scene they put in the game, or the miscellaneous dungeons being utterly worthless in the long run, and the story being nothing to shake a stick at, that I just feel like they missed so many steps that were literally right there, or were previously perfected by... well... Fallout 3.

 

[SajuukKhar]

snip

-Custom classes still shoehorn you into having some sort of skills above that of a normal person, meaning it still shoehorns you into having some past beyond something you may want.

-Ugh, you're missing the point entirely. Classes force me to be something, and stay that something forever. A monk is still a monk no matter how much I raise his combat skills, I cant be some guy who started off as a monk, a non-combat class, and then became a warrior, a combat class, because I am stuck as a monk forever. That each of those non-combat classes has a combat skill is totally irrelevant to anything I said, as I am still shoehorned into being a monk forever.

-To say that them allowing people to become OP is them only caring about the "casuals" is the same sort of absurd hyperbole I expect from the same people that blame all of gaming's problems on consoles, and act like Dark Souls 2 getting an easy mode means the series is ruined.

Furthermore leveling combat skills later on the game is far from impossible because of the way the level scaling works. Even at level 81, 2/3 of the enemies you encounter will be low level versions of those monsters, and will provide easy material to get your combat skills to high levels quickly, and without many problems.

-Dragons can't be affected by illusion magic, point irrelevant. As for who beat it with zero kills, it was some guy on the official Bethesda forums, he had videos and screens to prove it, but I saw the thread ages ago, and its buried so far in the forums It would be a miracle to find it again.

-If you dont have Dragonborn you wont have access to a perk reset, but you dont need a guide to find the quest, nor is Miirak's dragon soul taking hard to get around as he doesn't take all Dragon souls, and stops after you beat him. Also, the ability shouldn't have been in the game to being with, or even at all, as some would argue. In a RPG there should be some consequences to your actions, and getting perk resets removes all the consequences of leveling up. I find it funny that you claim to hate Bethesda's focus on the "casuals" yet advocate for a feature that does just that by removing any and all consequence from leveling. There's no SPECIAL/PERK reset in Fallout, and that a REAL MANS RPG with balance, unlike Skyrim which is designed for "TEH CASUALZ".

-Not really, again, the way the level scaling system is set up provides you with tons of low level enemies to use your skills on to level them up. Switching from warrior to mage at level 30 is not instantaneous, but the game provides you a way to build up your mage skills through natural play by throwing low level enemies at you that you cna use your magic skills on to level those up, while using your warrior skills on the harder monsters until your magic skills reach a high enough level to where you dont need your warrior skills anymore.

-I got level 60 through natural play, getting to 70 was only slightly hard, and getting to level 81 only slightly harder then that. If you think getting to level 81 is by any means "incredibly difficult", then I question how well you use the games mechanics such as the standing stones +20% bonuses, and sleeping's +10% leveling bonus, because with those, leveling skills is easy, if not a little time consuming.

-Balance really means nothing in a single payer game.

snip

I found Oblivion to be quite fun, and interesting, as did many people. The only real complaint about Oblivion is that they took out the jungle, but even the most hardcore of lore masters still found Oblivion fun to explore, even without the jungle.

Also, Morrowind was far from the original masterpiece that people make it out to be. The most exotic thing there was the mushroom buildings, and even those were just a re-skin of the popular "druids who live in trees trope".

As for Skyrim, they made it exactly as it was stated in lore, and after the whole Oblivion jungle removal thing, the lore community was pleasantly surprised on how accurate Bethesda portrayed Skyrim as it was described in past lore almost exactly to a T.

I really dont know what you expected from Skyrim, all past lore pointed to us getting exactly what we got, but if your one of those "everything has to be as "unique" as Morrowind" people, then I am afraid you understand very little of it's geography.

Now that I think of it, they could have based a game around the entire underground Dwemer empire. Those bits were personal favorites.

The Dwemer, along with Akavir, are Elder Scrolls giant mystery boxes. Bethesda wont do a game about them because it would kill the mystery.

 

[Zydrate]

One thing that has always been excellent in The Elder Scrolls series is its basic character progression system.

Annnnnnd you lost me.

I love the Elder Scrolls games, I really do, but their progression systems and basic structure is utterly clownshoes. From a game mechanics perspective they're complete and total garbage. Wonderful games, but mechanical travesties.

Anything to really back that up? You just called it "bad" in three different ways.

I like Skyrim's system, though it's prone to exploitation.

It's not too bad though. When my character starts one to two-shotting enemies, I up the difficulty one level. I have a thief now who can survive on Expert/Master because she's become that powerful.
Caster enemies are always a *****, though. Damn you, Ice Spear!

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Anything to really back that up? You just called it "bad" in three different ways.

I like Skyrim's system, though it's prone to exploitation.

It's not too bad though. When my character starts one to two-shotting enemies, I up the difficulty one level. I have a thief now who can survive on Expert/Master because she's become that powerful.
Caster enemies are always a *****, though. Damn you, Ice Spear!

Balance is a key element in any well designed game, at least from a mechanical perspective. It's part of why Chess is always held up as something of a "perfect" game. It's clean, it's simple (but hides tremendous depth), it's balanced. Now obviously Skyrim is a different animal, but in an RPG your levels and abilities should be carefully managed to allow for proper, challenging interaction with the world. Things should be hard, but not TOO hard. There should be a gentle escalation of challenge as you progress through the plot, but you should also feel a sense of advancement and progress with your character. It's a different kind of balancing act than two sides in a strategy game, but it's a balancing act all the same.

Elder Scrolls routinely shits the bed. Oblivion's character advancement was a ghastly mess...counter intuitive as all hell (there are huge guides on how NOT to accidentally gimp your character just by playing the game naturally), certain builds vastly superior to others, certain abilities (invisibility in particular) completely broken, and enchanting/spell making allowing you to remove all challenge from the game by becoming godlike.

Move on to Skyrim and the level up process is greatly streamlined, which is both bad (removes complexity) and good (is now intuitive). You can still accidentally gimp your character by leveling up doing the wrong things (too much blacksmithing and bartering, say), but playing the game naturally should result in a reasonably balanced character. Stealth is broken and utterly OP. Blacksmithing and Enchanting are both broken and utterly OP, once again resulting in a godlike state that removes all challenge (and most sense of reward) from the game. The little talent tree constellations are not well balanced with one other, some are hugely beneficial and others are not.

Now, none of this really makes it a BAD GAME, because it's a sandbox, and you can get away with a lot of tomfoolery in a sandbox. Elder Scrolls games don't rely on their mechanics to provide a compelling experience, in much the same way they don't rely on their storytelling. They use lore and world building and immersion to fill that gap, and players with a strong suspension of disbelief can put aside the shoddy game mechanics and lose themselves in the world. Those who don't have that suspension of disbelief, or do not care to employ it, often find the games entirely lacking. Which is why you see such strong divergence of opinion when it comes to the question of their quality. They're one man's GOTY, and another man's overrated rubbish.

For what it's worth, I loved Skyrim. But I laugh at the suggestion that its character progression system is "excellent", because plainly it is not. You might as well praise Walking Dead for having a sprawling, fully interactive world.

 

[Zydrate]

Anything to really back that up? You just called it "bad" in three different ways.

ALL THE WORDS

Okay, that does make sense.

To be fair though, Enchanting is a ************ to level up.